that's what the sign says that the little girl holds. i just love these children. this is the first year i openly said, all the time, "i love you kids" -- and i DO! -- the first year i took on in loco parentis, my educating duty, with great honor & responsibility.
today was the last day of school. the boy on the right hugged me & said, "i'm gonna misss you!" my two bad boys said, "we're sorry, mrs page, for all the bad things we did. thank you for helping us." i got hugs, hugs, hugs. a lovely 8th grader foster girl who has been in my fine arts elective came in, tears streaming, & embraced me. i've never had so many kids & adults openly embrace me at school. it's a different thing: they show affection much more openly at this place. it's not weird; the school's so small -- the kids really see us as being like parents to them!
we had a staff ballgame (i didn't play), & then, when the kids were bored, we went inside & had a contest to see who had gotten to know peers the best over the course of the year & i let the "winners" pick from the remnants of yesterday's class "store." they watched part of a movie. w/the whole school, they played in the water, including on a slip'n'slide teacher christy had brought. hilarious! then we had a pizza party & seven or eight parents showed up! i hugged them all, thanked them. we teachers lined up as the kids boarded the buses one last time & were told to put the bus windows down. as the buses pulled away, one of the aides sprayed buses & kids with the power hose. we teachers all laughed & waved goodbye. "are you crying?!?" christy said, & i said yes, i'm a cornball, wiping my eyes happily.the kids gone, the school weirdly quiet & empty, we teachers threw water balloons at each other, then i was home.
here's pix i sent out yesterday to their parents. i wanna remember all of this, so i post it here:
Our final school activity involved me/rites of passage (no puberty rites, obviously... This is a 6th grd class in a public school). Most kids gave short speeches. One group did their own "graduation" ceremony, since kids don't graduate at our school til 8th grd. These are pix from after the ceremony, at which I delivered a short speech the girls wrote, they each gave a sentence to the class, I gave them "diplomas" they'd made, then everyone tossed their grad caps, which the girls had made from grocery bags. These pix, of an unnamed group of kids from a California school, show the joy of the moment. It was a wonderful time! Jnypg
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ps, must add this story, too: "mrs page," one of my girls said in hushed, conspiratorial tones yesterday. "i became a woman yesterday." she smiled mysteriously.
"a rite of passage!" i said.
"i know!" she said, breaking back into a little girl grin.
"i'm glad you understand that!" i said, leaning in to talk in confidence. "i started when i was 10, & i had no idea what was going on. i thought i was bleeding to death!"
later, told her mother, who showed up for the party, & she laughed.
"it cracks me up!" she said. "she told me, 'oh, don't worry, mom, this is a rite of passage.'"
ha! life can be such a joy!
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